David Guterson. (2022). The Final Case: A novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

David Guterson. 2022. The Final Case: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

David Guterson, The Final Case: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2022.

David Guterson. The Final Case: A Novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2022.

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1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Guterson, David
   • bioText: DAVID GUTERSON is the author of several novels: the national best seller Snow Falling on Cedars; East of the Mountains; Our Lady of the Forest, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year; The Other; and Ed King. He is also the author of two story collections, two books of poetry, a memoir, and the work of nonfiction Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Washington state.
   • name: David Guterson

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Vintage

publishDate

2022-01-11T00:00:00-05:00

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title

The Final Case

fullDescription

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars—a moving father-son story that is also a taut courtroom drama and a bold examination of privilege, power, and how to live a meaningful life.
"Ultimately, the mystery at the center of The Final Case is not about innocence or guilt, but about how one family’s profound attachments can stand alongside breathtaking cruelty in another.” —Scott Turow, The New York Times Book Review
A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey—conservative, white fundamentalist Christians—are charged with her murder.
Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey’s case. An octogenarian without a driver’s license, he leans on his son—the novel’s narrator—as he prepares for trial.
So begins The Final Case, a bracing, astute, and deeply affecting examination of justice and injustice—and familial love. David Guterson’s first courtroom drama since Snow Falling on Cedars, it is his most compelling and heartfelt novel to date.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     August 1, 2021
     

     In this latest from the author who launched his career with the popular Snow Falling on Cedars, an Ethiopian girl adopted by a white fundamentalist Christian family is found dead of hypothermia in her Seattle backyard and her adoptive mother put on trial for murder. She is defended by an octogenarian criminal attorney whose son narrates the story as he chauffeurs his father around town. How did it feel for Abeba to find herself in an environment so far from--and so different from--her homeland? Why did the lawyer take what will be his final case? And what does the town think of these events?

     Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from October 25, 2021
     The death from hypothermia of an adopted Ethiopian girl, Abeba "Abigail" Addisu, while in the care of her Christian fundamentalist parents, Betsy and Delvin Harvey, drives this outstanding literary thriller from PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winner Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars). Betsy and Delvin, who live in rural Skagit Country north of Seattle, are arrested on homicide charges, and Betsy is put on trial for murder. On a break from fiction writing, the unnamed narrator accompanies his elderly criminal attorney father, Royal, who has agreed to defend Betsy, for the pretrial interview of Betsy. When Royal dies before the final verdict, his son picks up the loose ends of his father's life while continuing to follow the case, which exposes the cruel conditions in which Abeba suffered. The narration is the novel's main draw. Equal parts philosophical, humane, and self-deprecating, it powerfully speaks to the ineffable contradiction of living a meaningful life. Guterson sensitively explores religion, white privilege, and justice while examining with realism and empathy the bond between parents and their children. With its simple message of hope, this novel will linger with readers long after the final page. Agent: Georges Borchardt, Georges Borchardt, Inc.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 14, 2022
     

     Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars) returns to a courtroom drama with this new release. The unnamed narrator's father receives an assignment to defend Betsy Harvey when she and her husband Delvin are accused of homicide by abuse of their adopted Ethiopian daughter, Abeba "Abigail" Addisu. Since the narrator is between writing assignments and battling writer's block, he agrees to chauffeur his father Royal, a semiretired lawyer, to and from the various court proceedings. Betsy and Delvin, both white, are showcased through their fundamentalist Christian and conservative political beliefs. Short testimony from the Harveys' other adopted children is included, but provides no real clarity. Once the details of Abeba's life in Ethiopia are finally presented, they read like a laundry list of calamities, which dulls any empathy readers might feel. Royal is unable to finish arguing the case, and once he exits the story, the novel disintegrates. The narrator's musings are the strength of this title, but they obscure any profound reckoning that readers are supposed have; John Grisham's A Time To Kill or Christine Pride and Jo Piazza's We Are Not Like Them are better choices for that experience. VERDICT This is a sad story, slowly told. For devoted Guterson fans only.--Tina Panik

     Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from November 1, 2021
     A bestselling author explores art, justice, and grief as he questions what makes a story true. "Awhile back, I stopped writing fiction." This is one of the first things the narrator has to say about himself. After a description of the (implausibly brief) existential crisis that followed the end of his fiction-writing career, he addresses the reader directly: "If that leaves you wondering about this book--wondering if I'm kidding, or playing a game, or if I've wandered into the margins of metafiction or the approximate terrain of autofiction--everything here is real." This may look like reassurance, but it's actually a warning. Using a young girl's murder as an inciting incident, Guterson tests the reader's understanding of story, truth, and how the two intersect. The narrator's father, Royal, is an attorney approaching the end of his own career. When Royal agrees to defend a White woman accused of killing her Black adopted daughter, the narrator becomes intrigued by the case. Again and again, his father cautions him that the real justice system doesn't function the way it does on TV, but then a judge delivers a speech that provides exactly the kind of moral satisfaction we want from crime shows. This speech serves as a bookend to an earlier passage in which the accused woman's mother rants about all the ways in which White Christians are oppressed in contemporary America. The shape of this text--a single, uninterrupted paragraph spread over multiple pages--strains credulity, but its content is instantly recognizable to anyone who pays even scant attention to right-wing media. Guterson seems to be asking why righteously elegant oration seems realistic when it's coming from the bench but an equally impassioned soliloquy delivered in the living room of a double-wide in rural Washington feels like a literary contrivance. The author subverts expectations over and over again. After the narrative begins to take the shape of a courtroom drama, the story shifts back to the personal concerns of the narrator--including a lot of thought and conversation about the craft of writing--for so long that it seems possible that the dead child has been forgotten. She has not. It's just that real life seldom has an obvious beginning, middle, and end. The book closes with the narrator turning toward his wife in the dark while she whispers, "We can love people....What else is there?" This might feel like an easy out for a story in which hateful people and dumb mortality wield their power. Or it can feel like a gentle acknowledgement of our collective precarity. Needfully discomfiting.

     COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from October 1, 2021
     What defines a meaningful life? The narrator of this searching and languid novel looks to his father as exhibit A. While the narrator's own existence "clearly smacked now of bourgeois retirement," he finds inspiration in his 84-year-old Dad, a criminal attorney who is readying for what he suspects will be his final case. In 2011, an Ethiopian girl adopted by a family in Skagit County, Washington, died of hypothermia. Guterson (Problems with People, 2014) fictionalizes this real-life tragedy to fuel the initial momentum for this deeply reflective novel. The details of what emerges as a horrific child abuse case are unsettling and made even more so by the sudden shift of gears to the narrator's life once Dad's involvement in the trial ends. The abrupt change of perspective feels disorienting but provides effective ballast for the rest of the story. The looping writing--one of the sentences is 243 words long--demands attention and a slower pace, deepening the novel's impact. Guterson includes a quote from Okakura Kakuzō's classic, The Book of Tea: "Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things." A touching reminder to find beauty in the mundane despite the relentless crush of the horrific.

     COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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From the award-winning, bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars—a moving father-son story that is also a taut courtroom drama and a bold examination of privilege, power, and how to live a meaningful life.
"Ultimately, the mystery at the center of The Final Case is not about innocence or guilt, but about how one family’s profound attachments can stand alongside breathtaking cruelty in another.” —Scott Turow, The New York Times Book Review
A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey—conservative, white fundamentalist Christians—are charged with her murder.
Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey’s case. An octogenarian without a driver’s license, he leans on his son—the novel’s narrator—as he prepares...

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